Laurentiu Vlad

Laurentiu Vlad is Professor at the Faculty of Political Sciences of the University of Bucharest (since 2004). He holds a doctorate in history (1999, specializing in the history of mentalities) from the Institute of Southeast European Studies of the Romanian Academy. He was Vice-Rector of the University of Bucharest (January 2016-December 2019) and Secretary of State for University Education at the Ministry of National Education and Scientific Research (July 2016-January 2017). His fields of expertise are: the history of Romanians in the 19th and 20th centuries (imagology and imaginary national identity; cultural diplomacy; formation of elites) and the history of mentalities, political ideas and ideologies (conservatism, European idea, the image of the other).

The project

Titre : Romanian students in Paris (Law, Literature, Medicine, Science), second half of the 19th century - first part of the 20th century

"This project aims to explore cultural transfers through the phenomenon of pregrinatio academica, i.e. the intellectual migration and professional training of Romanian elites in Parisian universities. This theme is part of a long and rich historiography of Franco-Romanian relations. The French cultural model, ideas and political institutions played an important role in the modernization process of the Romanian Principalities / Romania, particularly in the 19th century: the multiple influences of French culture and politics were a determining factor in the transition from the "oriental" or "hybrid" culture of the Lower Danube, to the "western" values of "civilized countries "1. These influences and circulations (because we want to emphasize the dynamic nature of the process, which is not a mechanical imitation) took different forms in all areas of cultural, political and social life: the reading and translation of the great French writers, Parisian fashion, "the import of institutions" (Bertrand Badie), the training of political, intellectual and administrative elites in the faculties of law, medicine, literature and science. We propose to contribute to the analysis of the circulation and transfer of knowledge and culture through a study of Romanian students who attended Parisian universities in the second half of the 19th century and the first part of the following century."

Hosting Institution: INALCO

Selective bibliography

• Images de l'identité nationale. La Roumanie aux expositions universelles et internationales de Paris (1867-1937), Paris, L'Harmattan, 2016, 282 pp.
• Istorii românești ale ideii de Europa, secolele XVII-XXI (imagini, note reflecții) / [Histoires roumaines de l’idée d’Europe, XVIIe – XXIe siècles (images, notes, réflexions)], Éditions Institutul European, Iași, 2021, 340 pp.
• Articles / chapitres :  
• « Aux portes de l’Orient ». Quelques notes sur les images orientales de la Roumanie et des Roumains aux expositions universelles de Paris, 1867-1937, in „Südost-Forschungen” (Internationale Zetschrift für Geschicte, Kultur und Landeskunde Südosteuropas), 77, 2018, pp. 176-197.
• Brief notes on the education of a young Wallachian boyar. Constantin N. Brăiloiu and his studies in Sibiu, Geneva and Paris (1822-1832) în Social and Administrative Elite in the Romanian Space 15th-19th centuries, edited by Mihai-Bogdan Atanasiu and Cristian Ploscaru, Hartung - Gorre Verlag, Konstanz, 2021, pp. 141-154.
• The Project of Romania’s Participation in the Chicago World’s Fair in 1933: Some Unpublished Documents from the Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, în Sonia D. Andraș and Roxana Mihaly (editors), Creative Negotiations. Romania – America 1920-1940, Presa Universitară Clujeană, Cluj-Napoca, 2023, pp. 53-78.